Monday morning when I showed up in the kitchen at 7:30 in my white scrubs I was sent to work with Jorge to do inventory in the FREEZER-which is kept at about -10 degrees! I woke up fast. In an oversized puffy jacket and thin gloves, I stood in the freezer calling off 140 items from a hand-held palm pilot and recorded the number that Jorge shouted back to me. Things were not going smooth. The hand-held device lost reception twice while in the freezer...once on item 33 and another time on item 60 something. It does not have an automatic save, meaning we had to start over each time. A lot of the kitchen staff joked around about how I should be used to conditions like that since I'm from Wisconsin. If you know me well, you know that my fingers and toes turn white and lose circulation when they get cold. It was miserable! At least we got the worst over with first. From the freezer we moved to the produce cooler, then the dairy cooler, then the meat cooler, and finally dry storage. When all the inventory was taken we had to place the order through U.S. Food Service. I got to leave at 12:30 because I had to be downtown for WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) orientation at 1:30. I went home for lunch and said my goodbyes to Dan since I couldn't take him to the airport. The WIC orientation lasted three hours. We learned what WIC has to offer and what we will be doing during our one week rotation there.
Tuesday I had to be there at 7 am. This time I was more prepared to be in the freezer. I showed up with my winter hat on. I worked with the store room clerks to put away one and a half semis worth of food. The food comes in boxes on wrapped pallets. It then needs to be put away in the proper storage area (freezer, meat, produce, or dairy refrigerator, or dry storage). I got a great workout from lifting all those boxes and my fingers stayed a healthy red color because I was moving around so much. When I was done putting the order away I met with Chef Kelly (my preceptor for the week) and got a tour of the kitchen and tasted food along the way.=)
Wednesday I was in the kitchen by 5 am to help prepare a breakfast for the third shift employees. I buttered biscuits and panned up bacon and sausages then helped set it up in the cafeteria and helped serve the breakfast. For the rest of the day I followed Chef Kelly around. We met with a representative from True Lemon for product testing. True Lemon is a crystallized form of lemon to replace fresh lemon wedges and lemon juice packets. It was very sour, I puckered my lips. It can be sprinkled on fish, used in iced tea, or used in recipes. The packet looks like a sugar packet and is much easier to open than a lemon juice packet, this would be very beneficial for patients and it only costs a tenth of a cent more per packet. At lunch we did more product testing, this time with sweets. Desserts! There was a mango sorbet cheesecake, chocolate bomb, chocolate peanut butter torte, chocolate truffle, red velvet cake, tiramisu, apple cake, and strawberry shortcake. I think I would be a great professional food taster.
I had to be there at 5 am again on Thursday to work a production shift. The morning cooks get there at 4 am! I got to help Brenda, a cook who has worked at Presby for 30 years. I made a cilantro, tomatillo, jalepeno sauce to go over the tortilla tilapia. It was very fun to make and very delicious! I got to use a huge hand held blender to make the sauce smooth. I made a Jamaican jerk pork sauce that I didn't want to claim because it wasn't very good. It needed about a cup of salt and it would have been better, but I could only add spices because it was the Healthy Choice for the day. Next I made a tomato basil soup. Sound healthy? Don't let it fool you. It has about two pounds of butter and two gallons of cream. I also panned up cookies and ate some frozen cookie dough =) I was done with my shift by 1:30 but I stayed to work on homework because I had a counseling class with the interns at three. The class was done at five, but I stayed until 6:30 to finish the homework I wanted to get done. I passed out as soon as I got home!
It felt like I slept in on Friday because I didn't have to be there until 7am. I worked with the storeroom clerks to gather floor stocks and then deliver them to places around the hospital for two hours. After that Kelly and I did a safety and sanitation checklist in the kitchen. When that was done we went around to the cafeterias and tray line to taste food. I was done for the day at 11 except I stayed to work on assignments and to got to an employee forum. Everyone got cool free backpacks and a foam #1 finger. It was a very exhausting week. I totally went to bed at 9 pm on a Friday night. I still have a lot of homework to catch up on, hopefully next week will be a little easier!
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